The Railroad maps represent an important historical record, illustrating the growth of travel and settlement as well as the development of industry and agriculture in the United States. They depict the development of cartographic style and technique, highlighting the achievement of early railroaders. Included in the collection are progress report surveys for individual lines, official government surveys, promotional maps, maps showing land grants and rights-of-way, and route guides published by commercial firms.
All of the items presented here are documented in 0RAILROAD MAPS of the United States compiled by Andrew M. Modelski in 1975. The bibliography contains 623 railroad maps of the United States.

Annotation:

This Library of Congress American Memory site features images and descriptions of 623 railroad maps selected from more than 3000 regional, state, and county maps in the Library's Geography and Map Division. The selected items represent the variety of cartographic styles and techniques used in maps created for a range of purposes, including railroad surveys, U.S. General Land Office maps, surveys for rights of way, general surveys for railroad company reports, maps used by commercial publications, ticket agents and the public, and route guides to encourage commerce and travel by rail. The maps on this site were featured in the cartobibliography Railroad Maps of the United States: A Selective Annotated Bibliography of Original 19th Century Maps in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress, compiled by Andrew M. Modelski (1975). A descriptive summary of 50-100 words and notes on the scale, publication place and date, medium, call numbers, and repository accompany each image. The site also includes a lengthy (3000-word) essay outlining the history of railroads and maps, a bibliography of eight related works, and links to many American Memory sites containing related materials. The site can be searched by keyword and browsed by geographic location, subject, map creator, title, and railroad lines. This site is ideal for students and teachers interested in the history of railroads, cartography, and transportation in the United States.

This "experimental history project" so to speak, is part of a program supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to explore the possibilities of using the internet to increase the collection of archival material in the history of recent science to supplement and complement expensive and time consuming oral history interviews and preparation of autobiographical memoirs. This site includes three projects devoted to topics in microbiology being developed and maintained through a grant to the American Society for Microbiology. Parallel projects are being developed by the Society for Neuroscience and the American Society for Virology.

Annotation:

This site provides essays, timelines, and personal recollections of the history of research on plasmids, extremophiles and second generation antibiotics. Currently, only the plasmid portion of the site is fully developed. A timeline of plasmid research outlines major breakthroughs from 1903-1969, a glossary covers most of the important terms related to the field, and an extensive bibliography covers published papers on plasmids from the 1940s and 50s. Microbiologists and others involved with plasmid research can add their comments and recollections to the site's archive. In addition, the site contains links to other sites and professional associations interested in the history of microbiology.

Szilard's ideas included the linear accelerator, cyclotron, electron microscope, and nuclear chain reaction. Equally important was his insistence that scientists accept moral responsibility for the consequences of their work.

Annotation:

Site contains several biographies of the physicist and biophysicist Leo Szilard. Interviews and other primary sources are made available, as well as links to other sites for potential research. A number of images are present as is an extensive bibliography.

The first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, Blackwell came to Geneva in 1847 to study at Geneva Medical College, an ancestor to Hobart College and the only institution that would admit a female ‘pre-med’ to its all-male ranks. In a dedication ceremony for the sculpture on October 1, held in conjunction with the Kick-Off celebration for the Colleges’ capital campaign, President Hersh underscored the sculpture’s particular resonance for an institution defined by a coordinate philosophy

Annotation:

This site maintained by Hobart and William Smith Colleges relates a brief account of Elizabeth Blackwell's life, specifically with regards to her education at Geneva Medical College. It also contains several articles, both recent and historic, about Blackwell.

The Census Bureau's solution was to have a competition to find a new method by which the census could be tabulated. Herman Hollerith entered and won this competition. With his victory, not only did Hollerith make it possible to complete the census in a reasonable time frame, but his methods, which were used well into the 1960s, offered a foundation for the future collection of all types of data1. With his invention Hollerith allowed for the creation of one of the most dominant corporations of the computer age and secured his place in history as the father of information processing.

Annotation:

Account of Hollerith's life, particularly with regards to his development of a tabulating machine for the US Census Bureau. Contains brief listings of bibliographical and online resources.

Welcome to the world of physicist, biophysicist, and "scientist of conscience" Leo Szilard (1898-1964). How do you say it? Say SIL-ahrd.

Szilard's ideas included the linear accelerator, cyclotron, electron microscope, and nuclear chain reaction. Equally important was his insistence that scientists accept moral responsibility for the consequences of their work.

In his classic 1929 paper on Maxwell's Demon, Szilard identified the unit or "bit" of information. The World Wide Web that you now travel, and the computers that make it possible, show the importance of his long-unappreciated idea.

Annotation:

This site is dedicated to the life and work of Leo Szilard, a European physicist who contributed to the development of the atomic bomb, but protested its use. The site focuses on Szilard's role in advocating arms control. The opening page is basic in design, with a couple of images, a small amount of text, and a list of links. A visitor must follow these links to find the bulk of the information. The site contains images, transcriptions of interviews and speeches, audio clips, a short bibliography, a biographical timeline, and links to external sources of information. Perhaps the most useful of these external links take a browser to the online index to the Leo Szilard papers housed at the University of California, San Diego.

PhotoNet is an online database containing thousands of images from the Archives' collection of visual material.

Annotation:

This online database of over 3,000 images from the California Institute of Technology's archive of visual materials illustrates the history of science from the Scientific Revolution to the present. Photographs, fine prints, book illustrations, paintings, and architectural drawings of various scientists and their projects, including Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, George Ellery Hale, and Linus Pauling are found in the database. Images are accompanied by a brief (roughly 150-word) biography and, in many cases, a photograph or other image of the scientist(s) involved in the project. The site can be browsed through two sub-categories, "Science and Technological artifacts" and "Rare Books," as well as a keyword search by scientist name or subject. This site provides an ideal tool for research on the history of science and prominent scientific figures.

Evelynn Hammonds, ed., History of Science Program in Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Excerpt:

The RaceSci Website is a resource for scholars and students interested in the history of "race" in science, medicine, and technology. RaceSci is dedicated to encouraging critical, anti-racist and interdisciplinary approaches to our understanding of the production and uses of "race" as a concept within the history of science. Instead of assuming race as a natural category that science then uncovers, this site assembles scholarly works that look at how cultural processes of racialization have profoundly shaped knowledge about humanness, health, and even our understanding of "nature" itself.

Annotation:

RaceSci is a site dedicated to supporting and expanding the discussion of race and science. The site provides five bibliographies of books and articles about race and science. The section on current scholarship has 1,000 entries, organized into 38 subjects. A bibliography of primary source material includes 91 books published between the 1850s and the 1990s. Visitors can currently view 14 syllabi for high school and college courses in social studies, history of science, rhetoric, and medicine. The site links to 13 recently published articles about race and science and to 49 sites about race, gender, health, science, and ethnicity. This site will be useful for teachers designing curricula about race and for researchers looking for secondary source material.

THERE is, perhaps, at the present day, no subject upon which the community at large is so poorly in formed as the history of the first locomotives in America-in what year they were built, where they were constructed, and upon what railroad they were first introduced and employed in actual service.

Annotation:

Reproduction of 1871 book The History of the First Locomotives In America: From Original Documents And The Testimony Of Living Witnesses.